A new study links a protein discovered a few years ago at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with formation of scar tissue that occurs after injury to nerve cells in the brain or spinal cord.
Such scarring apparently blocks neurons of the central nervous system from recovering after traumatic injury – inhibiting their axon filaments from regenerating and ferrying nerve impulses elsewhere, to other neurons and tissue, including muscle. Loss of nerve cell function and paralysis ca
St. Jude researchers say reprogrammed nucleus model could offer valuable clues to how certain influencing factors combine with DNA mutations to cause tumors
Nuclei removed from mouse brain tumor cells and transplanted into mouse eggs whose own nuclei have been removed, give rise to cloned embryos with normal tissues, even though the mutations causing the cancer are still present. This research, from scientists at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, appears in the June 1 issue
How infants respond to their mother’s touches and smiles influences their development in a manner much like what young birds experience when learning to sing, according to a research project involving the Department of Psychology at Indiana University Bloomington and the Biological Foundations of Behavior program at Franklin and Marshall College.
An article on the research, titled “Social interaction shapes babbling: Testing parallels between birdsong and speech,” will be published this wee
Biologists at the University of California, San Diego have determined that a protein essential for the normal embryonic development of fruit flies is also used by mammals to assist in the timely healing of cuts and lacerations.
Their discovery, detailed in the June 3 issue of the journal Developmental Cell, provides new insight for scientists into the molecular mechanisms responsible for wound healing in humans and may one day lead to the design of new drugs for individuals whose healing is
A group of researchers from The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) and the Genomics Institute of the Novartis Research Foundation (GNF) have identified a small chemical molecule that controls the fate of embryonic stem cells.
“We found molecules that can direct the embryonic stem cells to [become] neurons,” says Sheng Ding, who recently completed his Ph.D. work at TSRI and is becoming an assistant professor in the chemistry department. Ding is the lead author on the study, which is described
By combining genes from three separate organisms into a single bacterial factory, University of California, Berkeley, chemical engineers have developed a simpler, less expensive way to make an antimalaria “miracle” drug that is urgently needed in Third World countries.
The drug, artemisinin, is one of the most promising next-generation antimalarials because of its effectiveness against strains of the malaria parasite now resistant to front-line drugs. It is now too expensive for broad use i
Scientists from the RIKEN Tsukuba Institute (Japan) have developed a valuable new experimental system for tissue-specific RNAi knockdown in mammalian cells and organisms – a discovery that will markedly advance the functional characterization of genes involved in development and disease.
Discovered in the late nineties, RNA intereference (RNAi) refers to the introduction of double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) into a cell, where it induces the degradation of complementary mRNA, and thereby suppresse
What if there were a magical chamber that could divulge the secrets of anything that was placed inside of it? Pacific Northwest National Laboratory has developed such a chamber—and while it won’t divulge all secrets, it discloses key information about chemicals and compounds.
That information may be useful in addressing a wide range of issues that affect the environment and quality of life—everything from sick building syndrome and industrial emissions monitoring and control to sensor testi
Theories abound as to why organisms favour sexual reproduction, but testing these has been notoriously difficult. A common view is that sexual reproduction helps to reduce the effects of damaging mutations within a population. Now researchers from the Rockefeller University have tested this premise, using careful measurements of bacterial populations, and provide evidence against it. The research published today in Journal of Biology examines how mutant bacteria respond to different forms of
Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have begun unraveling the network of genes and proteins that regulate the lives of cells. The investigators compared the genome of the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae (S. cerevisiae) to those of five other yeast species to identify all the locations at which molecules known as regulatory proteins attach to DNA to turn genes on and off. The study is published in the May 30 issue of the journal Science.
Among the many potenti
Scientists have discovered that seaweeds defend themselves from specific pathogens with naturally occurring antibiotics. The finding helps explain why some seaweeds, sponges and corals appear to avoid most infections by fungi and bacteria, according to a study published May 19 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
“Seaweeds live in constant contact with potentially dangerous microbes, and they have apparently evolved a chemical defense to help resist disease,” said lead author
Protein could be used as a treatment for Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and Huntington’s disease
A team of researchers from Imperial College London, the Charing Cross Hospital and University College London have identified a protein which could be used to protect against neuro-degenerative conditions such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Huntington’s, motor neurone diseases and the damage caused by strokes.
According to research published today in The Journal of Biologi
Research from a team at the Swiss Ornithological Institute, to be published in a forthcoming Proceedings B, a learned journal published by the Royal Society, reveals complex effects of global warming on migratory habits of birds. These effects may constitute a serious threat to some species – in particular those with longer migratory flights.
Over the past two decades spring temperatures in temperate regions have increased. This effect, due to global warming, has advanced the start of the r
Early evolution of life as we know it may have depended on DNA’s ability to absorb UV light. This insight into the early moments of life on Earth comes from research published today in the journal BMC Evolutionary Biology.
The research fills in one of the major gaps in our understanding about the origins of life: how single molecules were able to join together to create the self-replicating long chain molecules of RNA, the precursors of DNA. It “sheds new light on the earliest steps of evo
Genes come in pairs, one copy from your mom and one from your dad. In some genetic conditions, inheriting one bad, or mutant, gene copy from either parent is sufficient to cause disease. University of Iowa researchers have shown that it is possible to silence a mutant gene without affecting expression of the normal gene.
The findings suggest that the gene-silencing technique might one day be useful in treating many human diseases, including cancer, Huntington’s disease and similar genetic
Human beings may have made their first journey out of Africa as recently as 70,000 years ago, according to a new study by geneticists from Stanford University and the Russian Academy of Sciences. Writing in the American Journal of Human Genetics, the researchers estimate that the entire population of ancestral humans at the time of the African expansion consisted of only about 2,000 individuals.
“This estimate does not preclude the presence of other populations of Homo sapiens sapiens [mode
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